Go With A Smile
by Checkerboards
Summary: The Joker and Harley Quinn are on an unexpected vacation...in Valkenvania.  Oh, God, what have I unleashed upon the world? Crossover with the movie 'Nothing but Trouble'.
1. Finders Keepers

_Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen the movie 'Nothing but Trouble', prepare to experience some major spoilers. In fact, why not go rent it right now? I'll be here when you get back._

_Oh, good, you're back. Join me in a little game of 'Let's Pretend', hmm? Let's pretend that the last ten minutes of Nothing But Trouble ended somewhat differently. Let's pretend that instead of a mine fire, there was a firefight. Think Boondock Saints with a side order of the Three Stooges. Let's pretend that the handful of Valkenheisers that represent the judicial system died. (Oh, except for Dennis, who now owns the property and has left it to rot while he's living it up with the Brazillionaires.) While we're at it, let's pretend that Valkenvania is located about a hundred miles away from Gotham City...and that it's four in the morning on a hot summer's night._

* * *

The stars glimmered gently down on the ruins of the town. It was a small village with only one main road that whipcracked around the deserted buildings in a series of sharp turns.

A purple car screamed through the night, screeching around corners and leaving trails of rubber where the whirling tires touched the earth. "There!" the man in the passenger seat cried, pointing an imperious finger at a street they had already passed.

The woman driving sighed internally and pulled the car into a turn, skidding round in a complete circle before she was able to take the requested road. Neither of them knew where they were going. Frankly, at this point, they didn't much care. Where they were running _from_, however, was another matter entirely.

So maybe their crime spree hadn't been such a good idea. Christmas in July, what was wrong with that? But when Puddin' had decided that instead of _celebrating_, he was going to destroy stuff, well, Batman got a little irked. Broken-bones-and-dislocated-shoulders irked. And anyway, it's not like they'd _meant_ to torch that orphanage. The used car lot next door with the big Santa balloon was the real target. Could Harley help it if her aim went all funny when she was sneezing?

So now they were driving up some deserted road out in the middle of nowhere. People got a little peculiar out in the country, even she knew that. But this particular countryside was getting a little too weird, even for her.

She slowed down. A rusty, neglected drawbridge lay across a narrow canal directly in their path. A silver tongue gleamed inside the mouth of a giant fish sculpture deep within the canal, poised in mid-leap as if in the midst of savaging whoever dared to enter its presence. "Puddin'?" Harley asked, uneasily eyeing a filthy plywood angel covered with undecipherable writing.

"Drive," the Joker ordered, taking in the sights with hungry eyes. Old lawn ornaments thrown together in piles surrounded small patches of grass. Three cement dolphin heads beamed cheekily through a curtain of weeds. An ancient ticket booth, red and yellow paint peeling in stripes, rested in the shade of a leafless oak tree. Ooo, he was beginning to _like _this place...He smiled as they passed through a hill of toasters, the jumbled chrome reflecting their headlights like a disco ball. They rounded a curve and were welcomed with the sight of an ancient squared-off manor, shingles missing from the roof. A sea of dying metal was wrapped around it. Cars and washing machines were piled together in giant dented heaps amid ancient stoves and other detritus. If it had ever been made of metal, it was here and rusting. "Park the car. We're staying here tonight," he ordered.

Harley glanced nervously at the mound of flattened cars next to them as she pulled in. "You sure, Mistah J.?" she asked. "Seems kinda creepy."

Oh yes. This place was special, he could feel it. Without bothering to answer, he slid out of the car, white spats shining in the moonlight.

Neither of them noticed the set of eyes gleaming silently at them from inside the ruins of an old model T.

* * *

They spent the next few hours exploring the mansion. With every room they found, the Joker's grin grew wider and wider. Someone loved him very much, of that he was certain. How else had this wonderland come to exist?

The mansion was a dusty mess. It had obviously been abandoned years ago. But under the dust and debris, he was finding such wonderful things. The kitchen table was rigged up with a toy train to deliver condiments to the diners. Walls loaded with silent clocks glared at paintings of bulbous Victorians. Strange toys and bizarre taxidermied animals lurked in every corner.

He was currently in the master bedroom, poking with gloved fingers at the pile of human thighbones spilling out from a gaping hole in the wall. How had they gotten there? Why just the leg bones? Did severed legs make good insulation?

"Mistah J.!" Harley shrieked from the back of the house. "Come quick!"

He was tempted to ignore her. After all, he was wrist-deep in femurs! Priorities!...but the girl did know what fascinated him, and perhaps she'd found something even more interesting. He tossed a femur aside and picked his way down the rotting stairs, giggling quietly as he skipped over a mound of dented trophy cups.

He found Harley quivering in the back room, hands up over her face. "Pooh?" he asked happily.

"M-mistah J, there was...there was a...a _bat_," she said, shuddering theatrically. "A little furry squeaky rabid _bat_ that tried to attack me!"

The Joker patted the gun tucked into his waistband. "What fun! I haven't killed a Bat in _years_," he beamed. Harley gestured at the door to the outside, which had been locked, bolted, and nailed shut with planks until she came along with her lockpicks and her boundless curiosity. He stepped through, blinking in the light of a new dawn.

When his eyes refocused, the first thing he saw was a human skull. Then another. Another. They were piled high atop one another below what appeared to be a bull's-eye target. This place was _magnificent_.

He turned to see what was aimed at the target. It was nothing more than a hollow tube jammed through a fence...disappointing somehow. He climbed up to it and peered over the top of the fence. It led to the back of a giant network of leather bands and wheels. The broken belts swayed gently in the breeze. One wheel squeaked as the wind pushed it around.

He clambered over the fence, needing to get closer. He could feel the pulse of something grand calling him, drawing him nearer with scrambling steps. Thrills of joy burned behind his eyes as he took in the bloodstained machinery beneath his feet.

There were fences boxing in the front of the machine. He climbed up on the railing at the front, which looked remarkably like a roller coaster track, and crept forward onto the tiny conveyor belt enclosed inside the fence. He tilted his head up to behold the most glorious thing he'd ever seen.

He fell to his knees, reaching out a trembling hand to touch a grin - a shiny, metal grin under round, mad eyes, housed in a face the size of a school bus. One silk-covered finger caressed a gleaming, sharp spike in the deadly mouth. His eyes rose to the top of the machine.

Emblazoned on the figure's top hat, the words _Welcome to Mister Bonestripper_ gleamed menacingly at him through the rich golden light of the sunrise.

Overwhelmed with sheer delight, he collapsed onto the conveyor belt that led into the machine.

Heaven was real. Heaven was real and here he could be a God.

_"Harley_!" he bellowed, making plans as he stared up at that grinning face. He'd need her help to get his new favorite toy up and running again.

(_to be continued_)

* * *

_Author's Note: If you aren't able to track down a copy of the movie at your local video rental store, there are a few clips available on YouTube. I'm attempting to write this so that you can follow along without having a clue about the movie, but I can't hope to do justice to the fiery wonder that is the Bonestripper without visual aids. _


	2. Grabbing a Bite

It was an atypically beautiful day in Valkenvania. The wind had lost that vague aftertaste of smoky garbage, the vultures were circling, and the sun sparkled merrily off of the heaps of broken metal that surrounded the old abandoned Valkenheiser manor.

Not that the Joker noticed. As most young geeks soon learn, spending the day in the basement tends to curtail your knowledge of the outside world. He was currently only interested in the giant wooden gears attached to the cellar ceiling that powered the collection of devices in the courtroom.

_Almost_...He stretched up as far as he could to tighten the last screw, settling his weight gingerly on the front of the pile of mannequins that was serving him as a ladder. _There_! With one convulsive twist, the screw bit deeply into the wood. The look of triumph on his face downshifted into a look of shock as the heap of mannequins beneath him shifted and tumbled apart. His greasy hands snatched at the supports for the gears as his spatted feet did a jig of panic in midair.

His fingers closed on empty air. With a yelp of dismay, he tumbled backward, landing flat on his back like a malfunctioning cat. In a normal basement, this might have hurt. Then again, in a normal basement, the carpeting wouldn't consist of old mattresses and Happy Meal toys. The Joker flicked a cheerful bunny from one shoulder and chuckled as he slowly got to his feet.

Harley was in the kitchen. Given the option between servicing a death machine and making dinner, the Joker had gone for the obvious choice: the one not involving searching a dusty kitchen for sustenance.

She wasn't exactly pleased that they were staying there. It made her Puddin' happy, so she wasn't going to argue with him or anything - after all, she'd left the first aid kit back in Gotham - but it still gave her the shivers sometimes. Something just wasn't _right_ here.

The ancient boxes of food in the cabinets had gone bad decades ago. Harley disbelievingly held a tin of flour - an honest-to-God _tin_ of flour, not a bag! - up to the light to examine it. Something rattled inside as she raised it. In a fit of curiosity, she popped the top off and reached inside.

Something hard and sharp slammed down tightly around her fingers. "YOWCH!" she shrieked, yanking her hand out. A set of false teeth, old, stained, and fanglike, shot across the kitchen and connected hard with the freezer, exploding in a shower of porcelain.

Heart beating wildly, she dropped the tin. She was intimately familiar with false teeth, and the one thing she knew for certain was that they did not bite on their own without a lot of springs and clockwork.

Food. She shook her head, tassels whipping across her face. She was supposed to be looking for food. She approached the freezer, gingerly nudging the pulverized remains of the dentures out of her way with her foot. The freezer had a latch on it that was nearly rusted through. It took one firm _whack_ with a frying pan to open it.

The door creaked open and a stench like the armpits of Hell invaded Harley's lungs. She coughed furiously, backing up with one hand clamped firmly over her nose as the icy air escaped. What had these people kept in there? Freezers weren't supposed to stink like that!

The inside of the freezer was buried in inches of frost. Settled neatly in the center was an open saucepan, a small one, filled with some kind of unidentifiable liquid. Harley peered in at it. It had to have been in there for years, but it hadn't frozen. Weird...She looked around for something to poke the liquid with. Her eyes wandered to the floor.

The dentures gleamed back at her, fully reassembled. "Wh...How'd..." she stammered, forgetting the freezer and taking a step back. The dentures rocked back and forth. No. No, this wasn't right, this wasn't _happening_...

The teeth opened in a shark-like grin and snapped shut. With a shriek of utter terror, Harley fled the kitchen.

"MISTAH J!" she screeched as she raced through the house, stumbling over the heaps of junk piled in every available space. "MISTAH J, HELP!" She threw herself down the stairs, not caring that she somersaulted head over heels, not caring that she was getting bruises all down her legs and back. At the end of her tumble she rolled to her feet and slammed hard into the Joker, knocking them back down onto the mattress that he'd just gotten up from.

"Harley," the Joker said cheerfully to the quivering mass of henchgirl that was pressing him hard into the pile of toys. "How are things?"

"M-m-m-mistah J..." she stammered, trying to burrow into his chest. "The teeth...the kitchen...bit me!" she howled.

"The kitchen bit you?" he repeated, chuckling indulgently.

"Uh huh," she said, shaking all over.

He rolled his eyes. "Listen, pumpkin pie," he cooed, running a hand down her spine. She snuggled closer. With viciously quick hands, he grabbed her shoulders and rolled them over so that he loomed ominously over her. "If you can't take the teeth, stay out of the kitchen," he snarled softly. "I was _busy-_"

"It's scary here and I don't like it!" Harley shrieked directly into his face. "I wanna go back to Gotham!"

"We're not going anywhere."

"But this place is _haunted_, Puddin'-"

_Whap!_The back of his grease-stained hand thudded hard into her face, leaving a smudge of black on her white greasepaint. "The only one haunting this place is _me_," he growled.

Harley shrank down into the heap of toys. "I, uh...I'm sorry..." She leapt onto the one idea that would both get her out of the house and get her back into the good graces of her very angry boss. "I'll go to the store and getcha somethin' good for dinner, 'kay?"

He got to his feet and dusted his hands off. "Get a few turkeys, too," he called as he skipped up the stairs. Harley followed him, rubbing at the mark on her cheek and wondering how she was going to acquire turkeys in the middle of nowhere. This ruin of a town didn't even have a grocery store!

When the door had slammed and the clowns had gone, the atmosphere in the basement shifted to bitter cold. A group of amorphous spirits melted out of the walls and congregated in the center of the room, gesturing wildly at one another.

The Valkenheisers had been rather unkind to strangers in their lifetimes, particularly strangers who took a careless attitude toward the law. (Well, some would call their actions 'unkind'. Others would describe them as 'psychotic overkill'.) Having their home invaded by one of the all-time worst criminals in history and his pet henchgirl was not going down well at all with them. In their tight, shifting circle, they vowed to see the Joker dead, seriously injured, or permanently psychologically scarred.

Either way, they were going to have a lot of fun.

(to be continued)

* * *


	3. Hell is Other People

_Four days later_

Old houses tend to attract life. If the humans are going to build this lovely shelter and then leave it, the mice and roaches reason, then we may as well have a go at living indoors. And ooo, look at all the_ stuff_ to play with! Before you know it, the roaches are tapdancing in the kitchen and the mice are wearing waistcoats and then there's nothing else for it but to break out the flamethrowers.

The Valkenheiser manor had never drawn much in the way of animal life, at least not while the Valkenheisers were still rattling around inside it. The few mice and roaches that did manage to creep inside were generally dispatched as quick as a banker inside the Bonestripper. Gradually, the local lifeforms had learned that if they valued their ability to breathe, they should stay far away from the Valkenheiser manor.

That isn't to say that the building was uninhabited, though. The manor was stuffed with ghosts in the same way that an enchilada is stuffed with cheese. The main guideline for becoming a ghost is that one must have unfinished business. At the Valkenheiser house, the horde of ghosts that inhabited it all had unfinished business, mostly along the lines of _kill the bastards and wreck that goddamn Bonestripper_!

But then that dark night had come so many years ago when Chris Thorne and Diane Lightston had escaped and brought down the full force of the law upon the Valkenheisers. All of them had resisted arrest and all of them had ended up perforated with high-caliber death. And, of course, all of _them_ now had unfinished business: revenge on Chris and Diane.

The first meeting of the two tribes of ghosts had been dramatic, to say the least. The victims of the Bonestripper had swarmed the tiny group of Valkenheisers, swatting angrily at their tormentors with elongated clawlike hands.

The Valkenheisers were not of a mind to tolerate this cadre of lawbreakers and bankers. This was _their_ house. They roared into battle, making full use of every advantage that they had.

Which, in the end, was nothing. Ghosts were insubstantial as the mist, and battling amongst themselves had no effect whatsoever.

Ah, but physical attacks were only part of the weaponry available to the Valkenheisers. The ghost of shire reeve Alvin Valkenheiser directed a twisted psychological war against the other ghosts which resulted in a cease-fire of sorts. When a Valkenheiser was about, the other ghosts faded, grumbling, into the background.

The Valkenheisers had settled into a mindless tedium before the purple car had roared into their scrapyard. In life, they had condemned men to death for such heinous crimes as speeding, running stop signs, and changing lanes without signaling.When the Joker (for whom breaking the law came as naturally as breathing) had set foot inside their manor, a shudder of rage warped the walls of the room the Valkenheisers were clustered in. He had to die. It was that simple.

But, of course, they couldn't just arrest him anymore. If they banded together, if all of them concentrated as hard as they could and strained with their entire beings, they could move small things, like dentures. Dragging a resisting six-foot-tall psychopath all the way across the grounds was not merely impossible. It transcended impossibility in a way the likes of which had never been seen upon the earth.

Well, psychology had worked on the other ghosts, hadn't it? The Valkenheisers set to making the Joker's life as miserable as possible. When he set his pen down, they stole it. When he kicked off his shoes at night, they dragged them down the hall and stuffed them into an overflowing closet. When he ate dinner, they bounced on the control panel for the toy train and flung pickles in his face.

The Joker didn't care. Not only did he not care, he didn't even notice. He was so consumed with the Bonestripper that everything, including food and sleep, faded into the background as unessential details. His world was condensed into that shiny, shiny grin outside.

Harley, who didn't care about the Bonestripper, was in hell. The Joker may not have noticed when the ghosts stole his shoes, but she did. And when the ghosts started flicking pickles into _her_ face, it was all she could do to keep from running away as fast as she could. She couldn't leave the Joker here _alone_, after all.

She had taken a lightning-quick shower to wash off the brine, trying hard not to think of Norman Bates, and fairly leaped back out of the bathtub. She'd gotten half-dressed when she realized that her bra was missing. She _knew_ she had put it on the sink with her costume...

She hesitantly poked her head into the bedroom. There it was, wrapped teasingly around the neck of a decrepit taxidermied badger wearing glasses. Either Puddin' was playing games again (unlikely, since he hadn't done anything non-Bonestripper-related since he learned of its existence) or the ghosts had stolen it. She crept over to it and placed a shaking hand on the strap. The badger jerked to life and snapped at her fingers with sharp preserved fangs. She screeched and yanked the bra away, neatly knocking the head off of the badger. It whirled across the room and sank its dead teeth into an ancient pillow. Stuffing flew everywhere as the severed head savaged it.

Screaming, naked from the waist up, Harley pelted through the house in search of help, waving the bra like a flag. "Mistah _J_!" she howled, skidding to a halt in front of the dining room table. The Joker hunched determinedly over a stack of blueprints, scratching notes on them with a bit of chalk.

"Hmm?" he grunted, not looking up.

"Mistah J, a badger tried to eat me!"

"We don't want no steenking badgers," he murmured with a trace of a smile on his face.

"Mistah _J_!" she shouted, thumping her fist hard on the table. "Look at me!"

His eyes flicked over her half-naked body. "There's a spider on your shoulder," he said absently as he returned to his blueprints.

Harley spun in a mad, arachnophobic dance and collided with the huge clock in the corner. Dust, knickknacks and figurines spilled around her in a choking cloud. She slipped on a cheap tin bell and smacked hard into the floorboards, still examining her shoulders for unwanted visitors.

There was no spider. She glared up at him from the pile of debris on the floor. "That wasn't funny," she accused in a hurt voice.

And then she realized what she'd said. Telling the Joker to his face that he wasn't funny was deadlier than skinny dipping with a great white shark. She huddled down in the pile of broken figurines, hoping he'd make it quick.

He didn't move. He didn't even act like he cared! "Did you hear me?" she asked tremulously.

He leaped to his feet. She involuntarily skittered backward until her shoulders hit the wall. "Lightbulbs!" he said triumphantly before scampering out of the room.

"What?" she yelled after him.

"Lightbulbs for the roller coaster!" he called back, already out the door. Harley sighed and got to her feet. Well, he hadn't heard her. He hadn't heard anything she'd said all day! She sulkily shoved her arms into her costume and zipped it up, leaving her bra in the shattered ceramic on the floor. If the ghosts wanted it so bad, they could _keep_ it.

She kicked her way up the stairs, sending trophy cups flying as she stomped. She halfway hoped something else _would_ happen, if only because then she'd have an excuse to smash something to bits.

A clock chimed the hour from behind her. She spun and eyed the wall of clocks, none of which were ticking. They hadn't made a sound for days. Someone was trying to get to her again. She glared at the wall of clocks until another one made a noise.

_Bong_! A little cuckoo clock struck the hour and the little bird came out to chirp merrily at Harley. One jester-shoed foot slammed hard into it, sending it rocketing backward into the clicking gearworks of the clock. Harley kicked the clock until it was nothing but shards falling on the floor. That'd show 'em.

Satisfied, she kept going, exploring a hallway she'd never been in before. She opened random doors as she went along. The first one led to a room stuffed with dolls from floor to ceiling, naked plastic babies staring at her with dead, shining eyes. She shuddered and slammed the door. The next room was pitch dark and full of fluttery noises. Bats! She slammed the door hard and indulged in a writhing dance of disgust. _Eeeeeeew_!

The next door revealed another door behind it, a crypt door with disheveled letters carelessly labeling someone's final resting place. "Marjorie Valkenheiser," Harley read in a fascinated squeak. "She forgot to duck?"

_Thud._ Harley whirled to see the wall at the end of the hallway trundling toward her. No. She was not Luke Skywalker and she was not running from stormtroopers, therefore the walls were certainly not trying to crush her. She closed her eyes and attempted to wish it away.

When she re-opened them, the wall had advanced a further six feet in her direction. Okay, no problem, she'd just run around the corner and-

And a pair of doors snapped shut out of nowhere, sealing her into the hallway. Well, that was _fantastic_. She darted down the hall to the doors, thumping uselessly on them before turning and kicking the door to her left down. It led to a tiny stairway, which she darted thankfully into as the rolling wall slammed hard into the doors behind her.

God, she hated this house. She wearily climbed the steps and opened the trapdoor at the top, letting herself into the attic.

A safe rolled threateningly at her head. She shrieked and tumbled out of the way, landing splay-legged on the floor as the safe rumbled to a stop on top of the trapdoor. She stuck her tongue out at it. "Listen," she said to the air, "knock it off." She fumbled with the dangling light and turned it on.

The attic was papered liberally with driver's licenses, birth certificates, and every other kind of identification that Harley could imagine sandwiched in between newspaper clippings. "Eighteen _ninety five_?" Harley whispered in awe as she saw a carriage license dangling from a clothesline. She turned on more lights. A pair of corpses beamed at her from the corner.

Well, corpses held no threats, not to Harley, who had seen hundreds of them. She stuck her tongue out at them as well, and for good measure she tongued defiance at the curtainless window that showed a view of the scrapyard.

There was a dry, creaking noise. Harley spun, tongue still out, to see one of the corpses raise a bony hand. She backed away. Corpses she could handle. Zombies were out of the question. It tilted its dead head to the side and regarded her with empty eye sockets.

A hatchway slammed open to her left. It could lead anywhere - this place seemed to be made up of nothing but traps and secrets. Still, unknown dangers seemed far more attractive than getting to know the corpseified gentleman in the corner. She somersaulted through the hatchway, scrabbling to shut the door as the corpse wiggled coquettish fingers at her in a wave.

The hatch door slammed shut. Nothing immediately leaped out to try and kill her. Harley breathed a sigh of relief. She was alone in a spiderwebbed passageway that was just big enough to crouch in. She peered into the darkness. A slide slanted down into the shadows.

With a sigh, she settled herself on it and pushed. She rocketed down, sending clouds of dust up like smoke signals as she scraped the sides with her feet to try and slow herself down. The slide twisted beneath her and bumped her down the right side of a fork, tumbling her around in a complete circle before unceremoniously dumping her on her face in the dirt outside.

Harley tucked her knees beneath her stomach and rolled herself up to a kneeling position, coughing the last of the dust from her dry throat. Badgers, zombies, bats - well, she wasn't setting foot in _that_ house again, she was damn sure of that. She'd just stay outside, where it was safe. After all, it was summertime, and she was used to sleeping outside every once in a while. At least here she wouldn't have to share her spot with a pair of snoring hyenas. There had to be some kind of comfy spot among all this trash!

She picked her way through the garbage, skittering away with frightened giggles as metal clanked gently in the wind. She finally found what she was looking for inside a circle of automobiles that had been raised in a rusty parody of Stonehenge. Two battered armchairs rested under a corrugated tin awning. Perfect! With a happy sigh, she flomped down hard in one, cranking the footrest up and stretching her toes out as far as they'd go. She sighed happily and closed her eyes, enjoying the last rays of the setting sun as they warmed her.

Cold air landed on her like a skydiving elephant. Shivering, she opened her eyes and looked around.

There was a woman standing next to the chair - a tall, fat woman with a floral print dress on underneath a businesslike leather apron. Normally, that would have been enough merely to startle Harley. What made her mouth go dry and her palms go wet was the fact that this woman was a shimmering, translucent grey from head to toes. With an evil smirk on her face, she pulled a ghostly blowtorch from a pocket. Harley's mouth opened in a disbelieving "muh?"

The ghost lit the blowtorch and jabbed the flame directly into Harley's face. Instead of fiery heat it seethed with cold. Not that Harley cared about little things like temperature. She was on her feet and running, shrieking like a banshee as the ghost of Eldona Valkenheiser slowly stalked her through the piles of rusty cars.

* * *

The Joker, dangling upside-down from the roller coaster track like a monkey, screwed another lightbulb into its socket. He ignored the soprano shrieks coming from somewhere in the scrapyard. The coaster was almost finished, and in an hour or two he'd be able to pull the switch and watch triumphantly as the Bonestripper finally came to life under his patient hands. 

Another scream rang out into the night. He twitched with surprise and gashed his hand open on a broken lightbulb. He'd send the girl out to lure in Batman and get her out of his hair, he vowed as he swung himself to the ground. Maybe once it was quiet he'd finally be able to get some work done around here!

* * *

When Batman had arrived on the scene four days ago to find the Joker and Harley snuggling in front of a burning orphanage, he had been extraordinarily angry. He would have liked nothing better than to pound both of them into little pulpy smears on the pavement. 

Unfortunately, there was no time for it. The clowns had piled into their car and taken off at speeds that should have been impossible from a standing start. Batman had merely had enough time to shoot a tracking device deep into their bumper as they squealed away. It wasn't much, but it would have to do until he got the orphanage evacuated.

But when the following night had fallen, things had started to come up. Riddles on the Batsignal, new exhibits in the museums (one of which - Seasonal Masterworks - was certain to draw either Poison Ivy or Mr. Freeze out into the open), mysterious disappearances on the south side of town which pointed to Killer Croc...He was not enthused about leaving the Joker to his own devices while he ran damage control in his city, but Batman knew the Joker's habits. He'd find a safe place, burrow in, and start setting up deathtraps.

Finally, Gotham was quiet enough to devote one night to the search for the Joker. It had been four nights since the fire. How much could he have done in only four nights?

He was in for a very unpleasant surprise.

(to be continued)


	4. Getting There is Half the Fun

Leaving Gotham City was always a hassle. It was easier when the Batman was going long distances: he could always hop on board the company jet as Bruce Wayne or wing his way through the sky with his very own Batplane.

In this particular case, the plane was not an option. The Joker was less than a hundred miles away - the tracking device was just barely visible on the scanner - and though Bruce Wayne played the part of a droolingly rich idiot in the business world, even he couldn't justify taking the company plane on a trip that would last an hour in a car. Besides, what would Bruce Wayne want in a little town in the middle of nowhere? (The Batplane was also not an option, though for an entirely different reason: it had recently fallen to a nasty accident involving Dr. Kirk Langstrom, a bridge, and a shredded labcoat over the windshield.)

"Road trip!" Dick declared happily on the night of departure, seating himself in the passenger seat of the secondary Batmobile - the one designed to travel on nights such as these. It looked more like the old Batmobile, though without the bubble-windshield or the red trim, and it ran on normal gasoline.

Batman scowled at him. "Out."

"Hey, you need me," he protested, crossing his feet on the dashboard and settling down. "How else are you going to get those two back to Gotham?"

Batman glared at him. Unfortunately, the boy was right.

In Gotham, they always had the option of alerting the police to come pick up whatever rogue they had captured, or failing that, there was always the good old-fashioned method of tying them to light posts in front of the police stations and letting them dangle there like oversized Christmas decorations. They didn't need to worry about transporting rogues, they just needed to worry about catching them, which is why the Batmobile was not designed for criminal passengers.

Of course, this meant that in situations such as this, after apprehending a rogue, they needed to somehow get them back to Gotham. Batman had tried hauling the Joker and Harley in long-distance by himself on one memorable occasion. By the time they'd arrived at the asylum, the three of them had been covered with a variety of nasty injuries and the Joker had managed to carve something obscene into the armrests with the edge of his handcuffs. Batman was not eager to repeat the experience.

They'd obviously need a second car (which they could pick up on-site), which meant they'd need a second driver, which meant Dick was right. Batman grunted, annoyed, and climbed into the driver's seat. The canopy swooshed quietly shut over their heads and they roared off into the night.

They traveled on the dark roads for a full forty-five minutes, backtracking and turning around and around to catch the faint signal as it pulsed. The tracking device let out little pings when they were in the right direction.

_Ping. Ping. _

_Beeeeeeeep._ Batman glanced at the control panel. They were almost out of gas. "You were supposed to fill this after last night's patrol," he scolded, looking for a gas station.

"Hey, I was busy," Dick protested. "Y'know how hard it is to get Catwoman in here?"

The temperature of the car lowered a few degrees. "You arrested Catwoman?" Batman asked.

Dick snorted with laughter and yanked his sleeve up to reveal a set of parallel scratches. "I _tried_."

"Where was she?"

"Cartier's," Dick said dismissively. "If it's any consolation, she was doubly pissed because you weren't there." Silence from the driver's seat. "Y'know, since she likes you and all." More silence. "And since you like her..." A new wave of silence, silence so thick and deliberate that it almost formed the words _Shut up _in midair between them.

With rich, heavy silence ringing in their ears, they pulled into a gas station. The attendant, still lazily sipping a bottle of Coke, sauntered up to the weird-looking car and rapped on the window. "Yeah?" The canopy slid back to reveal a Batman who was trying very hard not to look pissed as Robin snickered in the passenger seat.

The attendant dropped his Coke, sending the icy, fizzing liquid cascading down the side of the Batmobile. "Oh, jeez, I'm sorry," he gasped. "Uh, what do you want?"

"Fill 'er up," Robin said.

"Right. Right. Uh..." The attendant yelped as the hatch for the gas cap popped open. "Right," he muttered, grabbing the nozzle with trembling hands. As the tank filled, he scampered inside to alert the cashier that "holy damn it's Batman out there!"

By the time he returned, the tank was almost full. He stood there, watching the numbers run up, uncomfortably swaying from foot to foot. It dinged. "Right," he said as authoritatively as possible, turning to face the dynamic duo. "That'll be-"

Batman silently held up the exact amount of money required. The attendant twitched backward. "But I was standing in front of...you couldn't have seen..." he muttered. Robin took the money and tucked it into the man's shaking hand.

"Have a nice night," he smiled as the canopy zipped closed.

The attendant fumbled for his cell phone. "Julie? Hon, you're never gonna believe what just happened..."

* * *

Harley Quinn was sitting on her car at the northern border of Valkenvania. The breeze was a little cold, so she had a musty wool blanket wrapped around her cheery spandex costume. 

She didn't want to touch that blanket. It was part of that house, and therefore it was probably haunted or full of ectoplasm or something. But she didn't know how long she'd be out there, and the blanket at least gave her something to sit on other than the cold metal trunk of the car.

For the first time in her life she wished Batman would show up. They'd been there four whole days - he'd _never_ left Puddin' alone this long before when he knew where he'd gone. And he knew, she was sure he knew, because she'd found a tracking device on the bumper the other day.

Was it even still working? The thought froze her solid for a moment. What if it was broken? What if Batman never found them and they had to stay there for another week? Another month? What if Mistah J never wanted to leave again?

No! They were coming. They _had_ to come. Harley shivered under her blanket. She wished she'd torched two orphanages. Four. Maybe if she'd set a whole street full of orphanages on fire the Bats would have been here by now.

What was _taking_ them so long? A cow mooed softly in the distance. To Harley, who had never actually seen a cow unless it was neatly disassembled and wrapped in plastic, the nasal braying honk sounded more like a new breed of monster on the prowl. She wished she could get into the car, but orders were orders, and she had to sit on the trunk.

The monster bellowed again. Well, she could sit _in_ the trunk, couldn't she? she reasoned as she frantically fought free of the blanket. She could sit in the trunk and then if anything came she could slam the door down and be safe. She huddled in the dubious safety of the open trunk.

What if the little tracker _had_ broken? It was starting to obsess her. Well, they normally had little blinky lights on them, right? So if it wasn't blinking, it was broken. Now, where had it been...

Batman and Robin rounded the corner to see Harley Quinn doing a handstand at the trunk of her car, squinting underneath the bumper as her feet kicked wildly to maintain her balance.

She was so involved in her search that she didn't hear the Batmobile purr to a stop. The first clue she had that someone else was near was when a pair of hands seized her ankles and yanked her up from the ground.

"Don't kill me!" she shrieked, flailing frantically. Her hands caught on the bumper and she curled herself up until she was gazing at her attacker: Batman, who dropped her feet and went for her hands.

Her hands had other plans, however, and soon they had attained their goal. Harley Quinn held Batman in a bear hug, laughing and crying and chattering all kinds of gibberish as she squeezed the breath out of him.

"You gotta get us out of here!" she yelled, winding up her rant. "A badger stole my bra and the kitchen's full of teeth and they keep throwing pickles at me!"

"Who does?" Robin said as Batman attempted to dislodge the clinging, filthy henchgirl.

"The ghosts!" she wailed, at the end of her tether.

Ghosts. Batman and Robin looked at each other and rolled their eyes. It wasn't that they didn't believe in ghosts - they'd certainly encountered enough of them through the years to prove conclusively that ghosts existed - but as a threat, they posed about as much trouble as a cheese sandwich.

Well, ghosts or not, they needed to extract the Joker from his new hidey-hole and get him back to Arkham. "Take us there."

(_to be continued_)

* * *

_Author's Note: Eeeeeeee, we're almost at my favorite part! I know that chapter was kind of short, but trust me - the next chapter will totally make up for it. (It's, like, radical, man. Bodacious and such.)_


	5. Judgement Day

Batman and Robin followed the small purple car as it wound its way through the massive piles of junk that dotted the landscape around the Valkenheiser manor.

The Batmobile glided to a smooth stop in front of the old wooden stairs that led to the house. Harley was already out of her car, staring nervously up at the bullet-riddled front door. "He's inside," she said unnecessarily, pulling on one of her tassels.

"Lead the way," Batman graveled.

"Do I have to?" she squeaked. "I don't wanna go back in!"

"Fine," Robin said cheerfully. "You wait out here, then."

Harley looked around at the salvage yard, thinking about that huge figure of a woman with her blazingly cold blowtorch...what if she came back?

Batman raised an arm and peered underneath his cape. Harley smiled sheepishly at him from the leathery darkness as she cowered closer to his spine. "Come on," he said, peeling her off of him. "You'll be fine."

"Sez you," Harley shot back, sidling up the stairs and letting herself in. "Puddin'!" she called. "Com-pany!"

A voice, oozing with importance, droned "Bring the accused into the courtroom."

Harley sighed and crept up to the door. "In here," she said, scraping ineffectually at the handleless doors. With a gunshot _crack_ they slid open.

Batman peeled Harley off of his back again. She adjusted her wristbands, giggling nervously, and slunk into the courtroom. "Uh...they're here," she called into the darkness. The Joker, unseen, pointedly cleared his throat. "Oh. Um, court's now in session," she said. "The honorable Judge Joker presiding." She tentatively pressed the awkwardly positioned button on the wall.

The carved and decorated wall at the front of the courtroom flew up, revealing stacks and stacks of dusty books piled around a tall desk attached to a pipe organ. Picture frames full of police badges whirled around to reveal picturesque paintings of country scenes. The desk slowly trundled forward, the carved griffin head on the front eyeing them like potential prey as it crept closer.

And from the ceiling a chair began to descend. The first things they saw were feet - the old-fashioned lion feet of the chair supporting the neatly spatted feet of the Joker. He slowly sank into view, a red regal robe with ermine trimming wrapped around his purple suit. A golden chain of office dangled around his neck.

Harley felt shivers run up her spine. Now he was wearing the dead guy's clothes. _Eeeeew._

The Batman and his protegé saw no need to wait for the festivities to commence. A set of batarangs whirled through the air, snapping the canvas straps supporting the chair and sending the Joker face-first into the desk.

Rather than bellow angrily or crack a joke, however, the Joker merely slid to the ground behind the desk and brushed himself off. "What are the charges?" he asked Harley solemnly.

"Sp-speeding," she stammered, sticking to the script that the Joker had written earlier in the week. "And...not bein' funny."

"Ah!" the Joker crowed, gazing down with an air of disappointment at the vigilantes in his courtroom. "That's the _double_ death." He adjusted his golden chain. "I hereby find all parties culpable in this matter as charged and so choose to invey the maximum levy for these violations and do therefore deem..."

It had been an excessively long car trip through very strange countryside. The Bats were tired and in no mood to deal with the Joker's ramblings. In one swift move, they vaulted over the railing separating them from the desk.

The Joker, who had been expecting it, yanked out the organ stop labeled "Floor Convey". As the Bats touched down on the wooden slats on the other side of the railing, they suddenly found themselves rocketing toward a gaping door to their left. With a pair of well-executed handsprings they leaped to the top of the imposing desk.

The Joker snarled "Contempt of court!" and jumped up next to them, doing his best to shove them onto the conveyor belt as he whacked away at them with his oversized oak gavel. Harley, cowering in the corner, watched with wide eyes as they battled. She didn't see the ghostly fingers stretching up from the desk top to tie the Joker's shoelaces together, and she didn't see it when they dropped a dictionary five inches thick on his foot.

She did see it when the Joker tried to stomp on Batman's foot and jerked off-balance. With flailing arms, he fell heavily off of the desk directly onto the creaking conveyor belt. "PUDDIN'!" she screeched at the top of her lungs as he shot out into the night air, tumbling haplessly into the roller coaster car that waited six feet below the open door.

She backsprung behind the desk, searching for the correct knob to stop the roller coaster. Which one was it, which one...the Bats were following the Joker out of the door, but she didn't care, she had to find the right knob!

There was a dull squeaking noise from her left. Harley spun around to see the stop marked "Bonestripper Start" pull itself out. "NO!" she shrieked, pushing on it as hard as she could. It refused to go back in. She started kicking it, throwing her entire body weight against that stubborn little knob as it firmly stayed out. She could hear the Bonestripper roar to life in a gout of flames. No, _no, NO!_

* * *

One might imagine that being unceremoniously dumped into the delivery cart for the Bonestripper would have a certain frightening effect on anyone. It certainly had scared others into desperate, screaming confusion as they rolled to their deaths.

The Joker thought it was hysterical. Here he was, owner of the greatest death-trap the world had ever seen, on his way to be delivered to its gaping maw a mere two hours after he'd made it operational again! His hoarse laughter brayed out into the night as he wrapped his fingers tightly around the chain-link fence surrounding the little roller coaster car. He was in no danger - the Bonestripper had its own startup knob and he knew he hadn't pulled it.

But as he crested the hill to see the fires roaring on either side of that big steel grin, the big _moving_ steel grin, he felt a moment of panic. It subsided when he grabbed the fence even tighter. Okay, so the Bonestripper was active, but he wasn't going _anywhere_.

_Yer gonna die_, a voice bellowed at him from inside his own head. _Yer gonna see what yer really made of! _The Joker laughed. The voice hesitated once, confused, then pressed on. _Yer gonna die, boy, quicker'n spit!_

The Joker ignored the ghostly voice bellowing and booming inside his head as he clung for all he was worth to that fence. The voices in his head told him stuff like that _all the time_, why should he start worrying about them now?

But now there were more of them. _Yer gonna die_, the old one boomed as something invisible pried his left thumb free. _You're gonna die_, whispered a rough female voice as another finger slipped loose. He struggled to get free of the invisible hands that were forcing him to lose his grip. He yelped as something crunched his right hand hard. _Mmm!, _a falsetto grunt of satisfaction as he instinctively let go of the fence to nurse his throbbing hand.

The little car jerked to a sudden stop. He tumbled forward, twisting through the air wildly like a hooked fish as he did a full flip. He landed hard on the little conveyor belt, frantically crawling backwards as best as he could with his feet tied together. The Bonestripper's steel grin leered menacingly at him. He threw himself backward, twisting in midair so that at least he was crawling forwards. But he'd been working day and night on the Bonestripper, not eating, not sleeping, and exhaustion was going to catch up with him soon.

Alone in the flaming darkness, scrambling on hands and knees away from certain death, the Joker giggled and guffawed as the ghosts gathered to watch the Bonestripper work its magic one last time.

(to be continued)


	6. Down to the Bone

Batman and Robin were on the coaster track, darting nimbly from beam to beam as fast as they could. They could have moved faster on the ground, but they couldn't trust the ground. The house was nothing but gadgetry and traps. They had to assume that the grounds were the same.

_The Joker couldn't have pulled all of this together in four days_, Batman thought as he leaped a curve. _It's just...impossible..._

The sight of the Bonestripper, metal teeth gnashing at the heels of the Joker, did what very few sights had managed to do: it stopped him dead in his tracks. Since he had been moving at a fair clip through treacherous terrain, this meant that he failed to curve where the track curved and ended up hurtling toward the grass.

"Batman!" Robin called from the track.

Batman smashed hard into a pile of blenders. "Get that thing turned off," he yelled up into the darkness as he rolled to his feet. Shattered glass sparkled off of his cape and tinkled merrily down onto the wreckage as he tore across the scrubby land to the little fenced-in area where the Joker was crawling for dear life.

"About that sentence," he wheezed as he saw Batman approaching, "I could maybe turn it into community service..." The trailing end of his judge's cloak wafted on the wind into the Bonestripper, where two serrated teeth punched it like a train ticket. "Feel free to jump in at any time," he snapped irritably at Batman, who was doing his best to pull the corroded metal of the fence apart. Rust flakes showered down onto the ground as he threw a shoulder against the thin iron bars.

The ghosts were very, very angry now. Together, they lifted one of the many stuffed and mounted birds that lined the fence and hurled it at Batman.

Batman jerked backward with a mouth full of partridge feathers. "Fluh," he spat, ducking as another bird whipped toward his head.

The Joker's knees were really starting to hurt. He took a precious second to wrench off a shoe and scrambled to his feet, leaping away with a falsetto yelp as the Bonestripper's teeth clashed shut mere inches behind his ankles. Now he was running for his life, which was marginally better because he'd had a lot of practice at it. His empty shoe, still firmly tied to the other one, banged hard against his calf as he wildly tried to keep pace with the moving belt beneath his feet.

Batman, doing his best to ignore the flock of dead birds smacking into his face, climbed up to the top of the fence and seized the Joker by the golden chain of office wrapped loosely around his neck. He pulled, intending to swing him over the fence like a cowboy lassoing a flying pig.

Instead, in midair, the weak and ancient chain snapped, sending the Joker flat on his back in a spectacular pratfall. The conveyor belt gleefully swept him toward the machine. His eyes rolled back into his head to see those massive metal teeth ready to close on his head and he was screaming laughter into the night...

And then there was nothing.

No, wait. There was something, a squealing noise of metal being wrenched apart. The scrapyard echoed with the sounds of the Bonestripper pulling itself to bits thanks to Robin's ministrations.

When the noise stopped, the Joker cautiously slitted an eye open. A metal spike dangled menacingly over his forehead, the sharp serrated edges a mere inch away from cracking his skull like a walnut. He frantically scooted forward, twisting to keep an eye on the horrible machine as he backed away from it.

His shoulders hit something hard and unyielding like a pair of miniature trees. He craned his head back to see Batman gazing solemnly down at him. "They just don't make deathtraps like they used to," the Joker giggled in a rush of adrenaline. He was alive!

"Puddin!" Harley came racing out of the darkness, leaping onto the conveyor belt and tackling him, planting huge wet kisses all over his face. Normally, he would have smacked her away in disgust, but since kisses were infinitely preferable to steel spikes, he let it slide.

Robin popped up from atop the giant machine. With a look of pure and utter fury on his face, he catapulted down to the little group on the conveyor belt and seized the Joker by the lapels. "Did you kill those people?" he snarled, shaking him. The Joker giggled. Robin shook him again, harder. "Did you?' he demanded.

"Robin?" Batman asked.

"There's a pile of bones back there," Robin snarled. He hadn't been quite as delighted as the Joker when he'd laid eyes on the heap of skeletons piled high below the bullseye target. As a matter of fact, he was as far from delighted as it was possible to be without venturing into the boundaries of psychotic annoyance. He shook the Joker once more for good measure, setting his teeth rattling as he laughed.

"They were there when we got here," Harley volunteered. A spike clattered somewhere in the depths of the Bonestripper. She shrieked and tumbled backward off of the belt, landing face-first in the dirt for the second time that day.

Robin shoved the Joker into Batman's waiting grasp. The Joker briefly considered popping his switchblade out - but no, he had the feeling that that would be a terminally bad idea. If ghosts could pick up dead birds and throw them, they could surely shift his aim so that he stabbed himself rather than the Batman. He didn't resist as Batman firmly cuffed his hands behind his back.

With one hand grasping the Joker by the scruff of the neck, and the other encircling Harley Quinn's upper arm, Batman led the clowns into the darkness of the scrapyard. Robin called after him "What about this _thing_?"

Batman glanced over his shoulder at the obscene grin. "Blow it," he said firmly.

Robin nodded and dug into a side pouch. The small group of ghosts were horrified to see him pull out a set of explosives. With quick movements, Robin fired them off into the deep recesses of the Bonestripper. When every bomb was placed and triggered, he hurried away into the darkness.

The Valkenheiser ghosts were swarming around in the depths of the Bonestripper, screaming voicelessly to one another and trying to dig out the explosives. But all of them were fighting with different explosives, and some were trying to disarm them, and some were trying to detach them...

With a crackle like God's Rice Krispies, the Bonestripper exploded in a series of fireballs. The ground shook as huge, warped pieces of metal slammed hard into the dirt. There was a sickening gravelly crunch as the ground beneath the dead deathtrap opened up in a sinkhole, pulling the wreckage down after it.

The Valkenheisers floated above the carnage in a state of shock. Ghostly tears streamed down Eldona's face.

And then, with a sparkling, shimmering glissando of joy, the other ghosts appeared all around them. They sang and shouted and danced around the sinkhole, pointing and laughing as the last metal spike disappeared into the glowing mine-fires. A woman in a red leather suit and a man with slicked-back, greasy hair gave one another a passionate kiss as the ground beneath their insubstantial feet cracked and crumbled.

The songs of joy reached their peak as ghosts started to rise in the sky like fireworks. With happy laughs of utter delight they soared into the air and popped into nothingness, their unfinished business finally complete.

* * *

The three men stared in the darkness at the blazing glory of ghosts swirling to their final reward. Each of them was thinking something different. Batman was noting the scientific details: how high off the ground the ghosts were when they disappeared, the order they went in, and physical descriptions that might match old missing-persons records. Robin was simply gazing in awe at the rainbow arcs of light shooting across the sky. The Joker was gaping at the ghosts, wondering uneasily if an army of spirits with a grudge against him was waiting for him back in Gotham.

And Harley Quinn was in the Batmobile, frantically digging in the glove compartment. She finally found what she was looking for - a set of Batcuffs - and snapped them firmly over her wrists. "Come _on_," she yelled to the other three, who didn't notice. With a sigh, she curled herself into a ball on the floorboards and tied her tassels firmly over her eyes.

* * *

_Author's Note: Wasn't that fun? Y'know, in an 'Oh-God-why-does-this-exist?' way, that is. It's like a bunch of spiders in a birthday cake..._

_Thanks to Dan Aykroyd for the glorious weirdness that is 'Nothing but Trouble' and the hours of amusement it has afforded me with the Bonestripper and the wall of femurs. Also, thanks to my husband for putting up with a continuous loop of 'Nothing but Trouble' for a few days while I settled the details in my head. Lastly, thanks to you for reading (and double thanks to those of you that leave reviews that make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside)!_

_Tune in next time for a Two-Face one-shot, "Grim Grinning Ghosts", and then it's back to the non-spooky stuff for a while with "Housemates", a sequel to "Get out of My House!" I'm excited. Are you? _


End file.
